The establishment of HealthWatch England may be further delayed due to the parliamentary timetable.
The Care Quality Commission has said it might have to wait until late summer 2012 to appoint a committee for the new body, which will oversee patient and public involvement in the NHS and sit within the regulator.
This is because the CQC would have to wait until the Health and Social Care Bill received Royal Assent and until the completion of any Department of Health consultations on relevant regulations before it could make any appointments.
A report to the regulator’s September board meeting states: “The effect of this…might be to delay recruitment until late summer 2012 and make it difficult to achieve effective establishment of HWE by October 2012.”
Originally the body was to be established in April 2012, but this was initially delayed by the government’s “listening exercise”.
The report also reveals that, subject to DH agreement, the HealthWatch chair will be appointed for two days a week with a proviso that this may increase during the set-up stage.
The committee will probably consist of between 10 and 12 people with a strategic, rather than operational, role.
Estimates of how much the absorption of HealthWatch will cost the CQC have been shared with the DH.
The report says: “Unless sufficient resources are devoted to this project it is difficult to see how it can deliver a functioning organisation as envisaged by government.”
It adds that meeting public expectations about the role of HealthWatch will be a “serious challenge” given the “range of views” that exist.
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